How We Eat

When my family comes to visit¹, I like to cook Italian, especially in the Italian style of service, since when we entertain, we generally do things in the French way (which, of course, is really the Russian way). How do they differ? If you don’t know much about food, not much. If you do, they are enormously different. First of all, **Italians are AOK with a little cheese before dinner**. Yes, Francophiles, get your jaws off the floor, I said cheese *before*. Charcuterie (or *salumi*, really) are often served with cheeses, olives and vegetables, although sometimes there is a separate vegetable course. romFor tomorrow I have *salumi* and *giardiniera*, though I will probably pick up some cheese, also, most likely some obnoxiously strong provolone, Pop’s favorite. This is the *antipasto*, “before the pasta.”

Next comes the *Primo Piatto*, the first plate. Pasta is more or less obligatory, although some other grain course can be substituted, like risotto or polenta (the Agent and I are big on polenta); alternately soup could make an appearance here. This course can contain almost anything or nothing. Many times, if the main course is a roast or braise, the sauce for the pasta is derived from it. Or, if something special is in season, like peas or truffles, they will make a simple adornment with some butter and/or oil and cheese. *Risi e bisi*, Venetian rice and peas, is a perfect example.

What comes next is what we would call the main course, or the incredibly poetic Italian term, the Second Plate. This is generally some kind of protein, but there is no specific rule. Fish, meat, fowl (Italians love their capon), anything, the occasion being marked more by the elaborateness of the preparation or of the ingredients than anything else, like prime rib for Christmas (although that it is a decidedly American choice). Italian menus tend to be more relaxed in their structure to begin with, since the grand tradition of food is rooted in the home, rather than, as in France, in restaurants and hotels. Interestingly, many times in people’s homes I hear them brag about mimicking a technique found in a French restaurant, but when I’ve worked in Italian restaurants, the chefs bragged about mastering a technique learned from somebody’s mother. Sometimes, my mother has been known to put pasta and roast on the table at the same time since she is so sick of standing around cooking for us, but I think that’s a different sort of tradition. Truth be told, my mother doesn’t really cook like this anymore, certainly not in recent memory. I guess I’m now the standard-bearer for cultural gluttony.

*Contorni*, or sides (“surroundings”), come along with the *secondo*. A green salad may be included here, or might come after the secondo is cleared. In my family, very often, there are other contorni, but a salad comes in halfway through, sort of staggered with the secondo. In some families, any or many of these courses are always the same for festive occasions. For example, my friend Anna makes *verdure fritti* (battered and fried blanched vegetables) at nearly every large meal. I can be accused of always celebrating with a pork roast.

Cheese, fruit and cookies account for the most traditional dessert (and at our house, certainly, fennel, which I believe is a Sicilian tradition- will ask Mom tomorrow), but pastry can make an additional appearance (though certainly not replace them) for especially festive (read: elaborate) meals. Unlike in French table service, the lines between these courses are decidedly blurred, especially at home, where someone may want coffee right after they eat in a desperate- but futile- attempt to sober up before facing off with a cannoli and some anisette and/or amaretto.

Here’s the menu for tomorrow (subject to change):

Salumi, Cheeses and Giardiniera
Fried Squid (Calamari Fritti: that’s with flour, none of that breadcrumb BS)

Sweetmeat Pumpkin Soup (Zuppa di Zucca)

Roasted Wild Striped Sea Bass with potatoes and fennel (Spigola Striata al Forno)
Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Bacon (Cavolini alla Pancetta)
Sauteed Spinach (Spinaci Saltati)
Beet Mash (Pure di Barbietole)

Fruit and Amaretti

Birth-a-day Cake

¹Getting my family to come to New York is a chore. My entire [immediate] family has only been once, and even then my sister-in-law was unable to come, and she was sorely missed, especially since it may be the last time I ever get them all here. They find going to their nearest city (Philadelphia) onerous, so the idea of going an extra 100 miles to the traffic-infested, dirty, non-English-speaking, crime-ridden den of iniquity I live in is especially unpalatable. Anyway, it’s just my parents.

Providence and Oz

When you read about restaurants and food enough, you get to the point where you can name a restaurant in just about every city you’ve heard of. There’s Bern’s in Tampa, Christopher’s in Phoenix and Al Forno in Providence. These are places you may never go, so who knows whether they’re really good, or whether they’re just better than what’s around.

In case you had any doubt, Al Forno is great. And I don’t mean great like “wow that was really good” great but I mean great like “holy shit, I’m afraid to have sex because Al Forno might be better and I don’t live in Providence” great. Al Forno is the kind of restaurant that you want to take people to when they say something decidedly idiotic like “it’s Italian food, how great can it be.” Al Forno is the kind of restaurant you go to to cheer yourself up. Al Forno is the kind of restaurant to go after several meals in places like [Sabatino's](http://omnivorousfish.com/node/55).

It’s along a cute little block in Providence on the East side of the river, just south of the Rhode Island School of Design. The address (577 South Main) takes you down a beautiful brick-lined walk to the kitchen door, so, if on foot, you walk around the building to find a very pretty facade with a very pretty view (of the restored foundries across the river) fronted by an onerously ugly parking lot. (Caveat: if you go before the restaurant is open, the doors are all shuttered, and since the edifice is covered with vines, it looks foreboding at best, abandoned at worst.) Once your fifty foot trek through the parking lot is done, you find yourself in a beautiful %arbor, speckled here and there by light filtered by overhead vines, walled by brick and facing a glass wall looking into one of the dining rooms. It seems as though a singing clock and candelabra are about to walk up and seat you. No one, however, comes out, and it’s still another several paces inside. If you’re early, you could easily stand there waiting to be seated until a regular walks past you- and around the corner to the door invisible to you if you’re not looking for it- wondering what you’re doing, standing there like an idiot.

I don’t really have the time right now to go into the food, but let’s just say I ate both meals basically in complete silence, chewing at the same rate a slug runs the mile. The food was so good it was almost scary. If you happen to find yourself there, and you’re wondering whether the melon, feta, mint and olive oil salad is a good idea, let me say this: if you eat nothing else (that doesn’t contain pork fat) in your life, you need to eat this.

Back home, finally, and loving it. Bought a 50 bottle vinotemp today, and down to Bowery tomorrow to get a new worktable for the kitchen. Life is good.